Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/124

 that time (the Red Army's march on Warsaw, the seizure of the metallurgical factories in Italy, the strike wave in Jugo-Slavia). Ina short space of time the Party grew into a mass organisation (wielding tremendous influence over the large masses of workers and peasants. This was demonstrated by the municipal elections results, in which the Party captured many municipalities, including Belgrade, as well as by the subsequent elections for the Constituent Assembly, in which the Party secured 59 deputies. This momentous growth of the influence of the Communist Party caused alarm among the dominant military and financial oligarchy, forcing the latter to start a systematic campaign for the purpose of destroying the Communist movement. After the violent suppression of the railwaymen's general strike in April, 1920, the militant oligarchy dissolved by force the municipal councils at Agaram (in June of the same year), and on the 29th of September a decree was published dissolving all the Communist and trade union organisations; the Communist newspaper was suppressed, and the Communist clubs were handed over to the social patriots. In the month of June the Defence of the Realm decree was promulgated, which outlawed the Communist Party and drove it out of its last refuge—the parliament and the municipalities.

In addition to the objective reasons arising out of the general situation in the country, the destruction of the Communist Party of Jugo-Slavia is greatly due to its own internal weakness. Its outward growth did not correspond either with the development and the consolidation of the organisation, or to the level of the Communist consciousness of the party members. The party had not time to complete its evolution towards Communism. It is perfectly clear now that the leading organ of the Party committed a number of serious errors and blunders owing to a wrong interpretation of the methods of struggle laid down by the Comintern. These blunders made the task of the counter-revolutionary government easy. While the working masses showed energy and revolutionary will in a series of strikes, the Party revealed no revolutionary initiative. Thus, when in 1920 the police prohibited the May-day demonstrations in Belgrade, the Central Committee of the Party made not the slightest attempt to arouse the masses to protest. The same thing happened in the following year. Neither did the Party organise any mass action in defence of the municipal councillors, who were forcibly ejected from the Belgrade municipality, which was wrested from the Communists. The passivity of the Party encouraged the government to go to the very extreme. In fact, the government, taking advantage of the miners' strike which broke out at the end of December, dissolved the Party, which at the elections had returned 59 members to parliament. Even then the Party did not organise any mass action.

This passivity of the Party, in the face of the fierce attacks